


Adventures in Nowhere

by Roxie Ann (pluvial_poetry)



Category: Queer as Folk (UK)
Genre: M/M, New Year's Resolutions 2005
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-10-31
Updated: 2005-10-31
Packaged: 2018-01-25 02:16:55
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,609
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1626290
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pluvial_poetry/pseuds/Roxie%20Ann
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>By all rights Stuart and Vince shouldn't even be here. Stuck - in the middle of Nowhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Adventures in Nowhere

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Seshat](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Seshat/gifts).



 

 

By all rights they shouldn't even be here. Stuck - in the middle of Nowhere, Alabama. Literally stuck, their car simply falling to pieces in a loud explosion (as Stuart would put it). In more practical terms, the battery failed. But in Stuart's world the two descriptions were both equally incomprehensible and annoying and quibbling over his choice of words wasn't going to change the fact that they were bloody stuck! In a cornfield! (Actually it had been cotton, and quite lovely, though Vince knew better than to point that out to Stuart at the time. There was no use in Vince winding him up, was there? Not when Stuart was already in a strop.)

They waited by the car for the longest time after the breakdown. That's what survival guides say to do in these cases. The closer you stay to the scene of a wreck the easier it is for search parties to find you, Vince informed Stuart. Not that Vince was a connoisseur of survival guides but one does pick these things up when one pays attention. Of course Stuart was in no mind to listen. Especially since, as he pointed out (quite snidely too), no one would be searching for them in the middle of fucking Nowhere!

Not that Stuart wanted to walk, mind. He complained loudest and longest about that. About the heat, the dingy roads and lack of fucking amber waves of grain. Although Vince quite agreed about that. You'd expect too see some amber, wouldn't you? But everything around them seemed to be made of the same sandy red clay. It was quite disturbing actually. The sky being blue, the grass being green and everything else being red. If Stuart found it disturbing too, he never chimed in.

Vince however, once being talked into leaving `the crash site`, didn't mind the walking. He found it peaceful really. Even with Stuart's whinings in the background. At the very least it was sunny and warm. After spending a winter wandering around Massachusetts and Connecticut (and the other New England states that somehow seemed less important so Vince never bothered to differentiate between them) wading through more snow than Vince had ever seen in all the combined winters of his life; sunny and warm was really all he needed.

It was only at mile three that Vince began to regret allowing Stuart to convince him to go and search for civilization. If one has walked for over three miles and haven't found civilization, that would be the first sign that there isn't civilization to be found. Of course, he probably shouldn't have said that to Stuart. It wasn't smart to bicker with him, especially not considering the circumstances. They could have died out there in the middle of Nowhere, and the last thing he said to Stuart would have been a tetchy remark about how it wasn't surprising that no one had come along to pick them up considering the tendency that cars seemed to have of blowing up or crashing through storefront windows when Stuart was around. It was a wonder that their car had lasted all the way to that cotton field.

And obviously it was no wonder that they walked the rest of the way in silence.

*

The person that said - "In the modern world, all roads lead to McDonald's", was right.

*

The town they found by heading in the direction of a fluorescent sign on the horizon wasn't precisely a metropolis. But it had a motel, a McDonald's obviously, and most importantly - a car service station. Once the towing lorry had found their car (rather difficult considering all that Stuart and Vince could do was point the mechanic in the direction of the nearest corn/cotton field) and retrieved it, their time in Alabama simply became a matter of waiting for the car to be fixed.

Vince was starving and since Stuart had no opinion on the matter (or he still wasn't speaking to Vince. They'd known each other for sixteen years and Vince still couldn't tell the difference), they ended up seated in one of McDonald's brightly colored booths.

Vince thoughtfully eyed the chicken sandwich he had gotten before setting it back on its wrappings. Stuart was looking off into the distance, patently ignoring his surroundings. And somehow Vince had started speaking without realizing. "I would have gotten that Big Mac. Be more appetizing than this, wouldn't it? You know, I read somewhere that there's more calories in one sandwich from McDonald's than an Ethiopian child will get in months. It's a shame, really. If only..." Stuart had leaned across the table, eyes flashing dramatically, interrupting Vince's ramble.

"Vince. What makes you think that I would fucking care about Ethiopians or bloody McDonald's?! You do realize that we are stranded in the middle of BUM FUCK, with no car, no plane tickets, no way to get the fuck out of here?! This is all your fault!" Stuart didn't bother to keep his voice down, he never did. Hence the scandalized shushes and wide-eyed gazes that seemed to follow them wherever they went. Yet for once, Vince wasn't concerned with what others around them were thinking. Because yet again, Stuart had struck him dumb with his sheer audacity.

"I`m sorry?" Vince asked on the possibility that he had heard him wrong the first time. There was the awful din of oversugared youth in the restaurant.

"Florida, Vince. We were supposed to end up in Florida. 'Must have taken a wrong turn somewhere. Signs say we're heading toward Alabama.'" Stuart mimicked Vince's words, sarcasm more than evident, crushing Vince's theory of miscommunication. "You can't even read a bloody map!" Stuart snapped as a finish.

Vince gaped at him in wonder. It hadn't been Vince's fault that the roadways in America were so clumsily labeled that you didn't know which way you were going until it was clearly the wrong way. And anyroad - "What about you? Refusing to turn `round, go back?"

"Going to point the blame at me then?" Stuart sounded amazed that Vince would even dare to say that, the way he always did when he felt like someone was having a go at him. "You can just fuck right off, Vince!" He told him, setting back in his seat, satisfied that he had made his point clear.

And he had, if his point had been that Vince didn't need to sit there and take his attitude. "Yeah. Yeah. I will then." Vince stood up and fairly marched out of McDonald's. Stuart's surprised,

"Where are you going? Vince! You've got nowhere to go! Just wait, will you? Vince!"

\- trailing after him.

Vince let righteous indignation carry him out to the street. He wasn't Stuart's lapdog anymore. They had been - whatever it was that they were to each other now (boyfriends? lovers? partners?) for over six months. Stuart had no right to speak to him that way. Not that Stuart ever let a thing like 'right' stand in his way.

Vince stood outside of McDonald's, staring down the line of the town, furious with Stuart, wondering if he should storm away to the right (toward the hotel and cable telly) or to the left (toward the service station and his only way out of this state)?

HIS fault that they were stuck here?! He couldn't even begin to understand Stuart's reasonings. Stuart had none, he was being completely irrational. So they were lost. It wasn't even that much of a trouble, was it? Vince frowned suddenly. Because it would be to Stuart.

Vince stared down the street again, the whole of the town laid out before him. They were stuck, same as being lost. Same as being trapped. The one thing that Stuart would hate, the one thing that he had fought against for so long. And left or right, what did it matter? There was nothing tying him to Stuart here, he could walk off and how would Stuart ever be able to find him? But that wasn't what Vince wanted. Why walk off into the sunset if Stuart wasn't there?

This thought process had gone on long enough for Stuart to finally twig on to the fact that Vince wasn't coming back inside. It took him several minutes but he did join Vince outside, his hands on his hips, braced for another fight when Vince turned to him.

"Look at where we are." Vince said quietly, blue eyes bright. "The middle of nowhere. 'S brilliant, isn't it? Discovering new planets, charting uncivilized lands." Exactly what they had set out to do when they had left Manchester.

Stuart shook his head, dark curls moving perfectly in time. "Vince, you twat. We're lost. Not conquering a nation." Something that sounded almost resigned had taken over Stuart. And Vince couldn't let it stand because -

"No, don't you see that's what's fantastic about being on a mission of discovery. You're never trapped or stuck or lost. It's all just a new adventure!" Vince was grinning like an utter twat, he knew it, standing there in a faded, heat-stricken Alabama town. But it was perfect because Stuart was grudgingly starting to return his grin, as if it all suddenly made sense again; the day, the trip, Vince - everything.

Stuart kissed him then, in the middle of the middle of Nowhere. A full-on snog; hands tight at his waist, mouth open. By the side of the roadway, in full view of the town.

And Nowhere felt like Somewhere suddenly, because Stuart was there. They were together on their new adventure and that was all Vince needed or wanted. To be nowhere and everywhere with Stuart.

~end~

 


End file.
